Tinkerings

Today was the kick-off for TETC in Nashville, TN.  Over the last few years I have come to TETC expecting less and less each year.  It was nice to be pleasantly surprised with the improvements in the exhibit hall.  However, my main concern remains year after year: There is no wifi at a technology conference.

I know not everyone wants the same things I do, but it is frustrating to be limited to the virtual keypad on my Droid to follow Twitter updates with the #tetc10 hashtag, send notes to teachers in my district about learning taking place, post links for others to follow, and participate in a back channel discussion about the day’s workshops.  At TETC it is unusual to see someone carrying a laptop.  Odd.

The first session I went to this morning focused on Technology and Writing.  There was a host of wonderful links for both elementary and middle schools.  You can find them here.  Sign in as a guest using the access code “jackieandkris.”  Awesome websites correlated to the 8 strands of standards for writing in TN.  However, with the list in hand, I wasn’t inclined to sit through the entire session, so I prepared to go to my 2nd session.

Unfortunately, the 2nd session was canceled due to a death in the family of the presenter.  By the time we had this information, the other sessions I had considered were already full.  So I went to the exhibit hall and began to look around.  There were some great new tools there (that I will share later).  I also met up with some friends from Memphis and Nashville and Charlotte.  It is always good to connect with like-minded educators.

I spent quite a while in the exhibit hall, but finally wound up in the 3rd session of the day.  It was hosted in a corporate room for SMART, and I was looking forward to learning a few tips and tricks to bring back to my high school teachers.  Unfortunately, the session was covering very basic information, and the teacher doing the presentation did not seem totally prepared.  Again, the other presentation I had considered was at capacity, so I wandered more through the exhibit hall.  I got a series of pictures taken at the PCS booth in an old photo booth.  The pictures were all based around the a Star Wars theme.  And yes, I will scan them when I get home and totally embarrass myself by posting them here and on Facebook.

The last session of the day was geared around using Flipcams in the classroom.  It was, by far, the best presented session I was at today.  They covered both Mac and PC based video editing.  I’ll write a little more about this particular session later tonight (I hope).

All in all, it was a good first day at TETC.  Not great, but better than expected.  I’ll take that.

No, this isn’t how much sleep I’ve lost since becoming a father…or a teacher.  I recently read this blog highlighting some findings from Malcolm Gladwell regarding talent.  It takes approximately 10,000 of practice on a thing to be able to develop professional talent in a thing.  10,000 hours.

So I did some math.  On average, teachers have 5 to 6 hours of class time each day.  Let’s just agree to call it 6.  10,000 divided by 6 is 1,667 days of teaching to really become a professionally talented teacher (rounded up to the nearest day).

We have 180 student contact days in our calendar, but with professional development teachers in Tennessee work 200 days a year.  1,667 divided by 200 is 8.3 years of teaching to become a truly talented professional teacher.

This is my 8th year of teaching.  I feel like I am finally starting to really “get it” in some ways.  I’m understanding kids’ behavior better.  I’m more reflective of my own practice.

Interestingly, it only takes 5,000 hours to be trained enough to teach someone how to be truly talented in a profession.  Maybe that’s where the misnomer comes from that “those who can do, and those who can’t teach.” (I would refer those who believe this concept to watch Taylor Mali’s video on YouTube one more time).

So, I suppose that it is no accident that we tenure teachers after about 5,000 hours of teaching.  They have proven they are on the right track.  The mistake comes when teachers are satisfied at being a “good teacher.” Another 4 years of practice and they could be a truly talented teacher.

It is kind of like the difference between a pastor who stays at a church for 30 years and another who changes churches every two years for 30 years.  One has 30 years of experience.  The other has 2 years repeated over and over and over. Which one do you want to lead your church?

Are you new to teaching?  Don’t be one of those statistics that says most teachers quit after 2 years in the classroom.  Change your paradigm.  Your college degree and Praxis scores didn’t make a you a good teacher.  They just got you in the door.  Put your head down.  Firm up your stance.  Get ready to attack that line again.  Did you get knocked on your backside yesterday?  Learn from it.  Don’t change grade levels just because someone told you 3rd grade was easier than 7th.  Keep working.  Practice. Practice. Practice.

Talent doesn’t come cheap.  Or quickly.

One of my favorite stories about the ministry involves a young minister who was assigned to a church where the former pastor had been there for over 30 years.  It was a daunting task to follow in the footsteps of a man so loved and revered by the small country congregation.

After a couple of months in his new pastorate, he noticed that the congregation was not really engaged when he would offer communion at the end of the Sunday morning services.  They did not look happy.  In fact, they would rarely look at him at all.  A few would walk to the front of the church, accept the wafer, and then quickly throw a disapproving glance his way.

Finally, in desperation, he went to the head of his deacon committee and asked if he knew what the problem could be.  “Well,” said the older gentleman, “I think the congregation is just used to having communion served a certain way after so many years.  You see, our former pastor had a ritual where he would walk over to the side of the church to serve communion instead of standing in the middle as you are.  When he prayed, he would reach down and touch the radiator.  I guess we just kind of got used to a certain ritual for our communion.”

Bewildered, the young man went to see the retired pastor the next day to ask about this “touching the radiator” thing.  After explaining how the congregation was not enjoying communion because he wasn’t touching the radiator when he prayed, the elder pastor threw his head back and let out a loud belly laugh.  “I’m so sorry,” he said after finally catching his breath.  “There is nothing spiritual about manner in which I served communion.  I went over to the side of the church and touched the radiator so I wouldn’t give anyone an electrical shock from my shoes running across the church carpeting!”

This congregation had seen something happen the same way for so long they began to feel there was something mysterious, magical, even spiritual about it.  They would not be satisfied unless they saw the same thing from their new pastor.

I wonder sometimes if teacher evaluations are like this.  Principals come into classrooms and “judge” the effectiveness of a new teacher on a regular basis.  But what happens when the principal doesn’t see what he or she “expects” to see?  What happens when the rituals they think work aren’t present?

Recently, Dr. Riggins of Lee University spoke to a group of aspiring administrators about a study he and his colleagues did a few years ago.  In the study, he asked principals to rate various teachers on a group of items the literature says make for effective teachers.  The principals completed a Likert scale for each of the teachers in question, ranking them from not very effective to very effective.  They were not told why they were doing the rankings.

When the data was collected, a correlation was made between the principals’ evaluations and the “effectiveness scores” (value added) of each of the teachers.  And the result?

There was a fairly strong negative correlation between what the principals perceived as effective and the actual effectiveness of teachers.

In other words, the more effective a principal rated a teacher, the less effective that teacher actually was.  And vice versa.

So my question is this: Were they looking for the radiator thing?

Last month I was asked to give a brief 10-minute talk to my fellow learners at our system’s Aspiring Administrators Academy on the topic of Administrators as Technology Leaders.  Due to some time constraints (OK, everybody ahead of me took twice as long as their allotted time), a few of us were bumped, and the talk never happened.  So, I thought I would post my thoughts here and let you add those things I may have missed.

Below is the Prezi I created to go with my talk.  The first few slides are simply screenshots from the “Did You Know?” video posted everywhere across the Internet.  There are two short video clips I added just to play in the background while I talked.  The first are images of the various kinds of technologies our students use every day.  The second is an abbreviated list of the software our district has provided teachers to help with instruction.  The main points of the Prezi are expanded below.

Know What’s Possible. Teachers do not expect their principals to be able to walk into a classroom and expertly demonstrate every piece of technology purchased for a school.  But administrators need to demonstrate life long learning as a daily practice, and learning about technology is part of the drill.  Read articles.  Read blogs.  Attend workshops.  Watch a webinar.  Find out what is possible with technology if you expect to lead in technology.

Demonstrate Technology in Your Own Practice. Create a PowerPoint presentation for faculty meetings.  Email a report as an attachment instead of stuffing mailboxes with paper.  Update your profile page on the school website regularly.  My rule of thumb is this: If you want to see how engaged a principal is with technology in his or her school, look at their personal profile on the school website.  Some are missing.  Others are still dated September when it is actually April.  And a few, a blessed few, update their page once a month like clockwork.  It doesn’t matter if YOU updated it, your secretary updates it, or one of your student aides updates it. The fact that you care enough to know it is updated speaks volumes to your teachers.

Give Teachers Time. Teachers will learn to use new technology the same way kids learn it.  They need time to goof off with it.  If you purchase a new software and expect your teachers to embrace it, cut back on planning time meetings.  Trim back after school faculty meetings.  Instead, tell every teacher to find time to just “play around” with the software.  It takes a huge amount of pressure off of them to “perform.”

Train, Train, Train, Train, Train, Train, Train…and Then Train Some More. I cannot even begin to express the frustration teachers feel when they new technology is “shoved down their throats” (a quote from a teacher friend), but no one gets trained on how to use it.  My suggestion is that administrators use the “I do, we do, you do” approach.  Go to the training yourself.  Show up in a teachers room and ask to help.  Then let them do it on their own.  Let me tell you how powerful and easy this is.  Our district has just purchased Interactive White Boards for nearly every classroom in the system.  Some are Promethean.  Some are SMART.  If the principal would just walk in one day and move some stuff around the screen with a pen or a finger or a koosh ball, not only will the students be impressed but the respect of the teachers will go up five fold.  Lack of training is the number one complaint of teachers regarding new technologies.  And if you offer training (or you have a tech coach that does training) make sure your teachers show up.

Know Your Limitations.  Most of the administrators I know are not technology experts.  Some still think that turning their monitor off is the same as turning off the PC.  So when you get ready to purchase new hardware or new software, understand that you are not the expert.  Get advice.  My former principal did this, and I really respected his final decision even though it wasn’t my recommendation.  We were deciding whether to go with SMART or Promethean.  Three teachers went to Promethean training and to SMART training.  Two of us came back with a recommendation for SMART boards.  One for Promethean.  However, the Promethean purchase was going to be about $10,000 cheaper.  That’s not chump change.  The principal got on the phone and called principals from other districts who had both boards.  He had the SMART and Promethean reps back in his office for several meetings to discuss all the options.  He truly struggled with this decision.  In the end, he went against my recommendation for SMART boards, but today I think he made the right decision for the school.

Always Consult the IT Department Before Making Any Decisions. Envision that statement with about twenty exclamation points at the end of it.  I would love to put Apple products in our classrooms, but our IT department doesn’t support them and they cannot connect to our server given its present setup.  What a waste of money if I decided to do that without consulting them first.  Or iPads.  I can envision a day when every student gets an iPad in kindergarten.  But will the infrastructure handle giving out enough IP addresses to let everyone get online at the same time?  Will it be better if maintenance or the IT department installs the new hardware?  Where should it sit in the room?  Do teachers need a desktop or laptop and docking station?  Your IT department is your friend.  Use them.

Always Choose The Technology To Fit The Lesson. Never Create the Lesson To Use The Technology. This lesson was brought home to me at the Discovery Leadership Institute last summer in a small group discussion about cell phones in the classroom.  Lisa Parisi, a fellow DEN member, made this statement to the group.  It is so easy to jump on the latest technology bandwagon and feel like you MUST use it in every lesson.  Just because you have a PC and a projector doesn’t mean every lesson has to be put into PowerPoint.  You don’t have to build every lesson in a SMART Notebook or Promethean Flipchart file.  When the technology is appropriate for the pedagogy, use it.  When it isn’t, shut it down.

It is at this point that I would be taking questions.  Instead, I’m going to ask one.  What did I miss?  What advice would YOU give new administrators about being a technology leader on his or her campus?

Ask anyone that knows me well and they will confirm that I am what is commonly known as a “loner.”  At a dinner table I will be the one silently listening to others.  At a party, I’m the one sitting in the corner chair quietly observing.  Even at family occasions I’m the one behind the camera taking pictures of others having fun.

Give me a laptop with an Internet connection in a small room with no windows and let me work.

So it wasn’t surprising that I planned a trip to Nashville for a little sightseeing and some music and came by myself.  Sure, I would rather share memories with someone other than just my friends on Facebook who comment on my pictures.  But I’m OK with long hours of little or no human contact.

And then…last night…as I stared out into the darkened parking lot from the elevator at my hotel it hit me.  I had just spent nearly 24 hours with no human contact at all.  Other than a couple of very short phone calls and speaking to a waitress about what I wanted for dinner, I had not spoken to another human being in 24 hours.

I remember times like that in school.  Junior High. High School.  College even.  Days where I would be surrounded by people, but no contact made.  Even for a self-confessed loner, times get lonely occasionally.

Think about the kids in your classes.  Let your eyes glide down the names in your grade book.  When was the last time Billy answered a question in your class?  When was the last time Suzie volunteered to speak?  Have you spotted kids in the hallway between classes just silently watching the others laugh and talk and push and shove around their lockers?  Ask around.  Are other teachers noticing the same thing from these kids in their classrooms?

It is a short walk from loner to lonely.  From isolation to isolated.  From filled with life to empty.

For some kids, you are the only human contact they will encounter during the day.  If you are too busy to spend 2 minutes with the quietest of the quiet, you may lose your only chance at connection.

Their parents are busy.  Or gone.  Or unaware.  But you.  You know.

Kids need more than lesson plans or standards.  They need human connection to be whole.  Even the loners in your classes will appreciate the extra effort.  Most of the time they are desperate for human connection, but they just don’t want to be the one to initiate it (or don’t know how).  They don’t need much.

But we all need some.  Even me.

Over the years, I’ve learned a few lessons on work ethic from people who have led me.  I’ve been running these lessons over and over in my head through the last few days, so naturally they have found their way to this blog post.  They have been unrelentingly playing in my mind like one of those ear worm songs that just won’t go away.  I’m hoping by writing them down i can allow my mind to think about other things soon.

Do Something Even If Its Wrong. This is a lesson I learned in high school from my grandfather.  He was a retired contractor and was working to help my dad, uncle, and me build our house in Arkansas.  I knew nothing about building, and occasionally he would find me standing around looking lost.  I cannot tell you how many times I heard, “Tim, do something even if its wrong, but don’t let me catch you just standing around.”  This has been, perhaps, the most defining piece of information that has guided my own work ethic.  In most cases, it has caused me to excel in the workplace.  Other times it has gotten me into trouble.  But I have always tried to let it guide me.  And I try to instill this thought into the heads of my students as well.

Sometimes You Get A Plaque. Years ago a State Youth Director with the Church of God told me the story of a secretary in his state office.  She had been there for years.  She thought she ran the office, and she would not be retrained.  At a state campmeeting they gave her a plaque and retired her with their thanks for her years of service.  That story, although perhaps apocryphal, has stuck with me through the years.  Without a good work ethic, sometimes people just need a plaque.

Never Stop Just Because You Hit A Wall. I learned this lesson from my dad.  We moved to Arkansas when I was about to begin my junior year in high school.  He had an idea to use injection molding machines to make replacement gaskets for a piece of equipment he used when he was in the wire and cable industry.  We worked together at night using someone else’s equipment.  The problem was he couldn’t sell it.  He was out of work and living on his savings.  He went to a local company and found something different he could make for them based on his knowledge from his prior employment.  That idea took off quickly, and soon we were making a profit and living comfortably.  As I worked with him over nearly 8 years, I saw him break down walls over and over again.  Nothing stopped him.  Today, I have become known as the guy who can “get ‘r done” (to quote a modern philosopher).  I owe that to him.

Your Work Is Your Reputation. Again, my dad taught me this.  In our family owned business, nothing went out the door without him approving it, or approving the person who approved it.  Every box of color additives, every sheet of pressed rubber for shoe soles, every shrink wrapped pallet was a reflection of my dad’s character and reputation.  It wasn’t just the outer appearance, but the fact that everything was done with quality, even down to the way we placed pallets on the trucks.  Today, I would stack my work up against anyone.  Like Will Sonnett used to say, “No brag.  Just fact.”

Think Broad, Not Narrow. I was raised in a conservative Pentecostal denomination.  During my younger years I was inundated with sermons that tried to narrow my focus as to who is accepted in the Body of Christ and who isn’t.  Easy litmus tests were used: clothing, smoking, drinking, attending movie theaters, etc.  Later, when I finished Lee University and later moved to Scotland and England, I realized it was better to view the world as broad rather than narrow.  My time at RAF Mildenhall serving as both the Protestant and Catholic Parish Christian Education Coordinator was hugely beneficial for me to realize that we simply do not all have to agree to be right.  While I still often believe that my ideas are better than most everyone else’s (OK, that’s a tongue-in-cheek statement for those that can’t see the smile on my face as I type), my ideas don’t have to be the ones implemented.  But once a plan is in place, all the other work ethic details listed above come into play.

There are other great lessons I’ve learned about work ethic over the years.  These are just a few that have been burrowing a hole in my head the last few days.  What kinds of work ethic details do you deal with in your life?

Over the summer I was privileged to attend the Discovery Educator Network’s Leadership Council Symposium at Bentley University in Waltham, MA.  Some of you may remember the short video a few of us produced to highlight the exercise routine of the week….walking 287 stair steps from our dorm to our meeting hall.

One of the highlights of the week was working with Dr. Lodge McCammon of the Friday Institute.  Lodge (as he is affectionately called by all his groupies) is a genius when it comes to using media in the classroom.  He has a wonderful self-effacing sense of humor that turns his apparent geekiness into the King of Cool.

During the half-day we spent with Lodge, he introduced us to the ease with which teachers and students alike can create “paper slide” videos for instruction.  In fact, rather than demonstrate the technique or lecture about it, Lodge made a paper slide video to show us how easy paper slide videos are to make.

As a result, I have decided that the starters for our 6th grade classes in our computer labs will be done this way.  The first six weeks I am creating all of the starter videos, but my goal is to students create them for the last part of the semester.  We will follow the paper slide format Monday through Thursday and then let them type their favorite or best starter into Word as part of Friday’s assignment.

I was surprised at how easy it was to do.  Although we are teaching math skills to 6th graders, our starters are all language arts driven.  As a result, we are asking students to write at least one paragraph at the beginning of class each day.  The first week of videos don’t fully follow our instructions from Lodge, but I’m working up to that.

Typically, his paper slide videos introduce a concept, demonstrate the concept in some form, and then ask a guiding question for the students to work on in order to demonstrate understanding.  My first few videos end more with guiding “instructions” rather than questions.  As the kids get used to doing this form of starter, we will change the construct slightly in order to be more open ended for them.

Here is the video we are using today as we get this process started.

We have had a full week of professional development so far in Bradley County, and the rest of the week is looking very similar.  A lot has been put before us.  But so far, the teachers at our school really haven’t spent any time there.  Today is our first full day on campus.  And a full day it will be.

We have a trainer coming to work with our teachers on Promethean software.  This is really important training for us.  We just installed an Interactive White Board in every classroom last year.  Teachers spent the year just sort of playing around and trying to get comfortable with it in their classroom.  Now it is time to crank it up a notch and begin to use it the way it was intended: interactively with students.

I worked with nearly 200 teachers this week myself going over the basics of DE Streaming and how it can be integrated into other sites like Wordle, Voicethread, Glogster, and more.  We touched on editable clips and the possibility of using green screen or recording a new narrative to replace the original.  I discovered at least 30 teachers that had never created a log-in.  Some of those are new to the system, of course.  Others work in our system, but had not been told they were able to use the program.  I think we changed that perception.  And many teachers want even more training later.

For me, today will be spent getting the rest of my 150 computers set up, re-imaged, replaced if necessary, and dusted.  I am expecting a great day of exercise climbing over tables, crawling under them, and engaging my core as I lean way over them to get the backs of computers.

We will top off the day with 6th grade orientation this evening from 5:30 to 7:30.

All in all this has been really good week.  Naturally, not every professional development session hit a home run.  But the effort put forth by our district team was monumental.  This was a first for our schools.  And, at the end of the day, I think the week has been hugely successful.

Let’s hope our first week with kids goes as well starting on Monday…

Teachers get a bum rap in a lot of ways.  Low pay.  Blamed for all low performance results on standardized tests.  Caught between parents and students.  The list is long.  But, we do get summers off.  Believe me, that’s huge.

But there’s one other way teachers get a bum rap.  We get to make two sets of resolutions each year: One on January 1st and another sometime in August or September depending on what state in which one teaches.

Of course, not wanting to be an underachiever, I also set myself up for resolutions at the end of the last school year.

Like all good resolutions, we mean well.  We honestly intent to do things differently.  Sometimes we even succeed.  Other times we learn to tweak the resolutions so they are easy to complete.  Like this one from last New Year’s for me:

I will begin the process of losing 40 pounds.

And I did.  Several times.  In fact, I’m beginning that process again next week.  (Hey, we’re teachers.  We’re smart).

Here are just a few of the resolutions I’ve set for myself this school year.

1. Delegate more of my work among my team members.  I am one of those people that like to do my work and the work of thirteen other people.  It is time to give it up.
2. Learn all of my students’ names in the first three weeks of school.  I am horrible with names.  I think the only way I learned mine was from my mom writing it on the inside labels of my clothes when I went to church camp.
3. Find a working phone number for every student before the semester is over.  I’m giving myself a little more time here, but those of you who don’t teach would be surprised at the number of kids who don’t know a phone number for their parents.  Or a street address for their house.  Or what a pencil looks like.
4. Only grade what matters.  No more extra credit for bringing hand sanitizer.  Or getting a form signed.  Or staying awake in class.  (You can’t make this stuff up).
5. Refuse to allow a single student to leave my class without learning the things I intended for them to learn.

OK, I really only wrote all those to get to that last one.  It is this dogged determination to see kids learn that keeps us coming back to the classroom every year.

I will let the teachers, admins, school board members, and other members of PLN that read this blog hold me accountable to these resolutions.  Feel free to ask anytime how I’m doing.  If my answer starts with, “Ummmmm….” just shake your head and walk away.  Ask again on a good day.

What resolutions have you made this year?

I received a round of interview questions recently with regard to an assistant principal opening in another district.  While most of the questions were pretty straightforward with regard to my opinions about the role of APs, discipline, management style, and such, the first question was extremely interesting.  It was much more philosophical (the kinds of questions I love to grapple with for days, weeks, or even years….don’t get me started on Walter Brueggemann’s Israel’s Praise again).

The question asked for my ideas regarding the purpose of a public school education in the life of a middle school student.  After writing my answer, I posed that question on my Facebook wall and asked my friends to give me their ideas.  Their responses were somewhat close to my own in some ways.

Here is what I wrote:

Middle school is the most interesting part of education.  Our school is grades 6 to 8, and it is really more three schools than just one.  Students change so much in each year, so middle school has to take on several roles as well.

First, middle school is a time of exploration.  Middle school students are exploring relationships, extra-curricular interests, academic strengths, boundaries put in place by anyone in authority, and a lot about themselves.  Middle school should be a place where the exploration has meaning.  Students learn how to act in society, how to be kind and giving (sometimes they learn this by experiencing the opposite), how to organize, study, and a host of other lessons aimed at making them more productive students and citizens.

Second, middle school is a time of preparation.  The changes from self-contained classrooms to changing teachers every period, from cubbies to lockers, from no dress code to some form of dress code, and more, help students create a slow, deliberate readiness to life in high school and beyond.  Middle school is a place that helps foster this readiness for life.

Third, middle school is a time of decision-making.  Students begin to decide who they are in the world.  They also decide if they like school or not or if they are good at it or not.  Some research indicates many decide in middle school whether or not to even stay in school.  As such, middle school takes on an even greater role in engaging students in academics (learning in general), exploring career choices (discovering what they like and what they are good at), socialization (how to treat others as well as deciding how they want to be treated), and aiding in the formulation of a beneficial world view (citizenship, family, friends, etc).

I would love for you to leave me some comments as to your own thoughts.  What did I get wrong?  What did I leave out?  Or better yet, what did I get right?